


Consternation

by Unsentimentalf



Series: Aggravation [5]
Category: Blake's 7
Genre: BDSM, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-08
Updated: 2019-06-16
Packaged: 2020-04-23 00:54:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19140334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unsentimentalf/pseuds/Unsentimentalf
Summary: "How did you get in?""The door was unlocked," Tarrant said. "This is beautiful. Where did you get it?"The silver and gold necklace shone in the bright light. Each wide triangular link enclosed a tiny black crystal. Being already completely familiar with the object Avon barely spared it a glance.  He was already familiar with the mostly naked body sprawled in his favourite chair, of course, so he made a point of not looking at that either.





	1. Chapter 1

Del Tarrant wasn't even close to being in Avon's thoughts as he reached the door to his quarters. He was thinking about the latest report from Orac on the use of the suppressant drugs on yet another border planet.

Avon waved a hand at the door which duly registered his identity and unlocked itself with the usual faint clunk. He was halfway across the room before he registered that he was not alone.

"How did you get in?" 

"The door was unlocked," Tarrant said. "This is beautiful. Where did you get it?" 

The silver and gold necklace shone in the bright light. Each wide triangular link enclosed a tiny black crystal. Being already completely familiar with the object Avon barely spared it a glance. He was already familiar with the mostly naked body sprawled in his favourite chair, of course, so he made a point of not looking at that either. 

"Zen. When was my door unlocked?" 

"It was unlocked at 10.03 ship's time." 

That had been last time he'd come in. "So why was it not locked automatically after I left?" 

"Reason unknown." Zen said.

"Huh." Avon said. "So you've been rummaging through my belongings?" 

"I was only going to look at the stuff under your bed." Tarrant said shamelessly. "I was curious to see if there was anything new in store. But these were just sitting on your desk."

"I know that," Avon said sharply. "I left them there."

"They're more my style than yours, I would have thought." Tarrant looked briefly sheepish. "I haven’t done that thing where I find my birthday present, have I? That's always a bit embarrassing." 

Avon walked over to pick up the matching bracelets. "Not a birthday present, but for you." 

"We're exchanging jewellery now? What's the catch?" 

Avon considered Tarrant, and the black underpants that was all he was wearing. The man had obviously grown tired of waiting for him to start something. Their last session been a while past, he supposed. 

Loath as he was to reward Tarrant for gaining illicit access to his rooms, this might equally be considered an opportunity to punish him for the same. Avon wasn't, now he thought about it, at all reluctant to take the time off for a little recreation. And there was the necklace, now finished, tested and ready for use. 

He shrugged off his jacket and settled in the other chair. "What's your safe word?" 

The grin was wide and very self-satisfied. That would have to go. "Roj Blake."

Avon tossed the heavy bracelets together at Tarrant, who plucked one out the air with each hand. Reflexes didn't come faster than Liberator's pilot's.

"So these will be restraints, I take it?" Tarrant slid one over his left wrist, rotated it a few times. Nothing happened. He pulled it off, then on again, added the second to his other arm. "Still not doing anything. Pretty, though."

He picked up the necklace from the arm of his chair and examined it for a moment before pushing his curls back to clasp it around his neck. "How do I look?" 

Young, handsome and annoying, Avon thought. "Far too pleased with yourself, as usual. Get down on your knees."

"What the hell?" From his new place on the carpet Tarrant had to look up slightly at Avon. He held out a wrist and watched the orange gems fade back to jet black. 

"The jewels - it's that fucking compulsion sphere." He got to his feet again. 

"It seemed a pity to waste the fragments." Avon had spent months trying to make something that could be used as a weapon out of what he'd salvaged from the refuse, concluding in the end that it was hopelessly underpowered for anything but a toy. "It doesn't compel, it merely enhances suggestibility. A moderate exercise of willpower can always override it." 

"It still messes with my mind." Tarrant had unclasped the necklace and was running his fingers over the inset gems. "I suppose this must mean that you made it yourself. I'd have expected you to come up with something rather more utilitarian. Certainly less gorgeous." 

"I wasn't intending to wear it myself." Though he'd had to do so while he put it through the great deal of testing he'd felt was appropriate. 

The necklace went back around the neck. "Try it again." 

"Get down on the floor." Avon suggested. 

The gems flickered orange as Tarrant moved instead to the mirror. 

"Thank you for my present, " his reflection said to Avon. "I don't know what you think you're going to get in return for it but I like it a great deal." 

Avon didn't bother to hide his small smile. Both the design and the description had been intended to appeal to Tarrant's many vanities. There had been little doubt that he'd succeed. 

The smile he got back said clearly that Tarrant knew pretty much what was going on but was either too vain or to reckless to care.

Avon pushed himself out of his chair, without hurry, and came to stand behind the other man. Over Tarrant's shoulder he could see them both reflected. He put his hands on Tarrant's shoulders, running them across the metal and onto the bare skin. He could feel the slight shudder. 

That was why they'd done this barely more than a half dozen times in two years. That and not the ageing libido that he was occasionally accused of by his frustrated non- partner. When this became commonplace - when he felt no skin shivering at that first touch - this would be the start of the end. 

He knew that Tarrant had fantasies about them becoming lovers. Tarrant had a head full of ideas of passion. He couldn't do much about those ideas except stamp on them, hard, whenever the man was fool enough to let them show. 

He slammed the toe of his boot into the back of Tarrant's right knee just as both his hands pushed forwards and down on the bare shoulders. Tarrant yelped and stumbled forward, hands out to break his fall, hitting his head (not particularly hard) on the mirror. Avon placed his foot on the middle of the man's spine and applied all his weight. 

Tarrant collapsed flat, face down on the carpet, Avon following up with both knees on his back to pin him down. From here, leaning backwards and outwards he could just hook his left hand over the edge of the box under the bed. He pulled it a little way out and rummaged blind for a second. 

These would do perfectly. One length of rubber went round Tarrant's flailing left hand, as Avon pulled both wrists together behind the man's back and made a second loop. Tarrant was familiar with the way these particular restraints tightened as he struggled; he immediately stopped trying to rip them apart and concentrated unsuccessfully on keeping his ankles out of Avon's reach. 

Once his victim was pinioned at wrists and ankles, Avon stood up and checked for visible damage. Just the red mark from his boot on the left of the spine; no blood but it would bruise nicely if it was kept away from the med unit long enough. 

The bracelets clanked together as Tarrant rolled awkwardly onto his side to glare upwards. 

"Now who's looking pleased with himself?" 

"I have good reason." Subduing Tarrant was seldom easy and he'd done it without receiving a single blow or scratch. "How's the head?'

"What? Oh, fine. Sorry to disappoint you." 

"I wasn't trying to damage you." Avon said. "That bit comes next."

"You're not very subtle today."

"No. How did you get into my room?" 

"The door was unlocked."

Avon knelt down by his head. "Zen give me a count of twelve seconds, starting on my mark." He reached out, grasped the necklace and twisted it. "Mark."

At first Tarrant didn't react as the edges of the heavy triangular links dug into his neck. One. Two. Three. Four. By now his mouth was open, struggling for breath. Five. Six. Seven. He was thrashing around, blood showing in his face. Eight . Nine. Ten. Real panic would kick in now, driven by physiology, not reason. That was what Avon was after. He let go.

As Tarrant heaved for breath, Avon bent down to his ear. "How did you get into my room?" 

The necklace glowed. "Tape," Tarrant gasped. "On the lock."

Avon stood up and looked down at the man. The triangular corners had left a pattern of deep red indentations around his throat. 

Tarrant had stopped him briefly as he came out of his room a few hours ago to talk to him about the ship's course. The younger man had leant casually against the door frame as he often did. Tape over the connection could well stop the lock engaging, and the pilot would have had plenty of opportunity to practice the manoeuvre on his own door first. 

"And here was I thinking you'd done something clever." 

"Didn't need to." Tarrant was getting his breath back now. He blinked away the tears in his eyes. "Stupid worked fine." 

"You must have been desperate to get my attention."

"I was bored."

Avon was about to tell him what he thought of that excuse when Cally's voice interrupted them.

"Tarrant! Wake up, Tarrant, the ship's got got unexpected company. We need you. Can you hear me?"

"Fuck," Tarrant mouthed inaudibly, and aloud, "On my way!" 

"Hurry! Avon, are you awake? We've got trouble." 

"I heard you. Avon out." He was already on his knees untangling the rubber ties. 

"Can I borrow some clothes?" Tarrant's freed hands were working on his ankles. 

"No," Avon said. "They wouldn't fit, anyway. Why didn't you bring any?" 

"I wasn't planning on needing them." He was scrambling to his feet now. "Come on Avon, it's an emergency. I can't turn up like this."

Avon sighed and seized his black silk dressing gown from the bathroom, thrusting it into Tarrant's arms as they both went for the door. "Don't spill anything over it."

 

"How the hell did you let them get that close!"

Avon seconded Tarrant's dismay. Two pursuit ships and a Fed heavy cruiser were sitting almost on Liberator's tail, close enough that he could see the open gun ports on the large ship. 

"They just appeared there," Dayna said. "Nothing on the scan and then whoosh, gunships with weapons locked in. We didn't have a chance to do anything."

"That's not possible," Avon said. "Zen would have reported them even if you were slacking."

"Which we weren't". Cally said. "There was someone up here every minute. Dayna and I were both here for the last half hour. There wasn't anything at all on scan."

"Never mind that now," Tarrant said, "They aren't shooting at us yet. What do they want?"

"They aren't responding to hails."

"Zen. Current speed?" Tarrant had taken his place at the top console, Avon's dressing gown flowing around him.

"Standard by 5."

"Right. Cally, you watch the big one. Avon, the pursuit ship to the left, Dayna the right. Vila stand by the weapons."

"Don't you think you should run whatever you're planning by us first?" Avon asked.

"We're going to accelerate." Tarrant lifted a hand to the protests. "A tiny amount. Not enough to spook them into firing, I just want to see if they adjust speed to match. Ready? Zen, take us to standard by 5 point 1."

Nothing on the screen changed. 

"Zen. Speed of the ships out there," Tarrant requested.

"Standard by 5.1."

"Fast reactions they've got. Zen, at a random point in the next two seconds make a change of course, 0.1 microdegrees port."

"Cancel that order!" Avon snapped but he could already feel the familiar wrench of momentum caused by a course adjustment at high speed.

"Have you gone insane?" he demanded of Tarrant. "You can't manoeuvre with ships that close!"

"I just did. What did our playmates do this time?"

"My ship's lined up parallel again," Cally announced. 

"But how much did its distance from us change?"

"Not at all, as far as the instruments can tell. It looks the same."

"Mine too," Dayna said.

"That's not possible." Avon was checking his visual reading against the console. "The pilot would have to have had a virtuously instantaneous reaction time. I suppose if they've got really fast computers in there..."

"Not fast enough." Tarrant said. "At this speed a microsecond of misalignment would either put them a hundred spacials adrift or buried into our hull. Even the fastest of computers needs to detect our movement before it can react."

Avon stared at Tarrant and then back at his console. "The heavy cruiser should have been ripped apart by that much momentum shift."

"Yes," Tarrant agreed. "Interesting, isn't it? Zen, are the ships' weapons still locked onto us?"

"Confirmed."

"Viewport." Tarrant said. "They are close enough to be seen by the naked eye. Can somebody go up to one of the viewports and just eyeball them for me?"

"I'll go." Avon was already on the run. The weapons trained on them were easily enough to put a large hole in Liberator. 

He came to the wide viewport and stared through the thick transparency. The cruiser should be in sight from here. It wasn't. Just in case he made his long way to the next port. Still nothing. 

"I'm at viewport six," he messaged to the others. "What should I be able to see?"

"The cruiser is slightly left of your centre,” Tarrant called back.

"Nothing but empty space. Someone should check the other side." He started to jog back.

By the time he got back Cally was calling in from the other side of the ship with the same report. No pursuit ships.

"I guessed as much." Tarrant said smugly. "Zen's suffering from hallucinations."

"You guessed?" Avon said sharply. "You risked the ship and us on your guess? You could have checked out of the window before swerving into their path."

"It was a pretty confident guess," Tarrant said. "Nothing could have got that close or reacted so quickly. Piloting is my department, broken computers are yours. While you fix my ship I'm going to put some clothes on."

He turned his back on the screen still showing enough firepower to send them all up in flames and sauntered out. 

"He's looking remarkably pleased with himself for a man caught out wearing jewellery in bed," Vila commented.

"Vila." Dayna said warningly 

"What? I mean there's no reason why he shouldn't if he wants to. It's a bit odd though even for him." And to Dayna's sigh. "What?"

"That wasn't his own dressing gown," Dayna said. 

"Oh. Right. " He glanced at Avon and away hurriedly. "If those ships don't really exist I think I'll just get myself a coffee. Anyone else want one?"

"Yes," Avon said. "Get it and get back here quickly. I want to go through every interaction anyone had recently with Zen before I tackle its psychosis, if that's what this is, head on."


	2. Chapter 2

"I have reviewed all the crew interactions with Zen in the last four hours. They were all predictably mundane.” Orac said. “However I have two further queries for Kerr Avon.”

“Go ahead,” Avon said. Now that Tarrant was back with clothes and Vila with coffee they were all gathered around Avon's console. The illusory ships were still registering on all their instruments. Avon wanted as much information as he could before he started to argue with a possibly insane ship. It hadn’t been difficult to persuade Orac that investigating Zen’s instability was a matter of importance for its own safety.

“Is the cause of the failure of the lock on the bedroom door still unknown?”

“No. It was a very minor technical matter, now remedied.”

“Elucidate.”

“I put tape over the connection,” Tarrant said cheerfully.

“Nice!” Vila said. “The old ones are always the best.”

“For what purpose was a twelve second count requested?"

“I wanted to do something that took twelve seconds,” Avon said. “Zen was merely acting as a timer.”

“Ten,” Tarrant said.

Avon scowled at him. He could see the glint of gold under the white shirt’s open neck. 

“You stopped after ten seconds. I did wonder why you’d set the count for twelve.” Tarrant explained.

“Could we stick with the potentially relevant, please? Orac. Is there anything at all in your review that could explain Zen’s behaviour.”

“Negative.” Orac said. 

“That’s a pity. I suppose I will have to ask it myself. This could take a while. The rest of you might as well go off shift.” 

Alone, Avon paced up and down for a few minutes, watching the screens. This was a deeply worrying development. Zen had been almost entirely cooperative for years now, after the first few disagreements that it had had with its human crew. It was the ubiquitous interface between them and their ship. Without it they could barely fly Liberator in a straight line. 

The first thing to establish was whether Zen was deliberately deceiving them or whether somehow it was being deceived. 

“Zen. Are you aware that your sensors are reporting erroneous information about the environment surrounding Liberator?”

“Negative. No erroneous information had been reported.”

“Do you claim that three hostile spaceships are out there?”

“Negative. No hostile spaceships are within sensor range.”

“Your sensors report that they are. Is this not erroneous information?”

“Negative. Sensor report is not in error.”

Avon frowned at the flashing lights. “Your sensors report what is not there. Therefore they are in error. Confirm.”

“Sensor report is not in error. Sensor report is as functionally required.” 

He turned on his foot and glared at the screen. Utterly pointless when talking to a computer but it made him feel better. “You're saying that you're doing this deliberately.” 

Silence.

“Is the discrepancy between sensor reports and Liberator's environment purposeful?”

“Confirmed.”

“Remove the discrepancy immediately. That's an order.”

The ships vanished from the screen. 

That hat been easy enough. Another half hour of arguing got him no nearer Zen's reasons though. ‘Required’ was as far as he could push the ship's computer to admit. He ended up with a carefully phrased set of instructions banning any repeat of the anomaly, which Zen appeared to accept. 

 

“I thought you might be ready for another coffee by now.” Tarrant had appeared at the doorway. “Oh good. You’ve made the ships go away.”

“That’s all I’ve achieved,” Avon said.

“It’s still broken then?"

“I don’t think its broken at all. I think it’s just being alien. You weren’t around for the first year on Liberator. We had all sorts of problems with Zen back then.”

“So how did you solve them?” Tarrant had come across to give him the mug and now stood with his hand on the console, a little closer than strictly necessary. 

“We didn’t,” Avon said. “It adjusted to us in the end, or seemed to. This,” he waved at the screens, “As far as I can tell was a deliberate attempt to deceive us but it won’t give me a reason.”

“It was an incompetent attempt,” Tarrant said. “Ships don’t appear from nowhere or manoeuvre in perfect synchronicity. Surely Zen knows that?”

“Maybe it was some sort of test,” Avon said.

“I don’t like the idea of our ship testing us.”

“No,” Avon said. “Neither do I. I’m done here for the moment anyway, until I think of some better questions to ask.”

“Excellent. We can pick up where we left off,” Tarrant suggested.

“No.” Avon was certain that this was not the right time to disable Liberator’s pilot, even temporarily. Until he worked out what Zen’s hidden aims were he intended to treat this as an ongoing crisis. Recreation would have to wait.

None of that should need explaining. He sipped the coffee and felt unbearably tired. “You can update the others. I'm going to bed.” 

 

In the following weeks Avon thought of a few more questions to ask but none of them generated helpful answers. No further phantoms appeared on any of the screens and Zen's behaviour seemed back to normal. 

Tarrant had taken to wearing his new finery all the time, or at least all the time that Avon saw him. It was still psychoactive -the gems could be seen flickering during his interactions with the others -but Avon had never caught an occasion on which he could say with confidence that the man had succumbed to its influence. 

Wearing it was a stupidly reckless thing to do but Tarrant wouldn't listen if Avon told him so Avon said nothing. He'd set an alert if anyone entered his rooms without him but Tarrant didn't repeat his incursion. Avon got used to the hints of silver and gold showing at the man's wrists and neckline. After a while he no longer associated it directly with unfulfilled desire.

It had been too close altogether, he'd decided. Another twenty minutes and Tarrant would have been in no state to run around the ship making fast and accurate deductions. If it had been a real emergency and just a short while later they'd have been facing it without a pilot, and quite possibly without him as well if the other man had been in no condition to leave behind. 

Normally choosing between the welfare of Tarrant or the ship would have been no contest but recreational sadism carried specific obligations. There were times when you couldn't run off to deal with something more important. You had to be certain that you could both safely finish what you'd started and on Liberator when could any of them be sure that they might not be needed whole, sane and competent at a moment's notice?

 

The early evening knock at his door was familiar and unwelcome. Avon opened it and stood in the way.

“What do you want?”

“Have you decided that you're done with me?” Tarrant did not look at all light-hearted.

“Yes, I suppose so.”

“And you didn't think to tell me? Drop me a memo, even?”

He hadn't thought to do that, no. “You cottoned on soon enough.”

“Why? And don't give me bullshit this time. I know that what you were getting was what you wanted.”

Avon might put an end to the conversation but Tarrant would only come back. Persistence was one of his major traits. He might as well cut to the chase. “We can't afford to have you injured.”

Tarrant laughed, surprise not amusement. “Injured? Scratches and bruises? I regularly used to get more seriously hurt playing sports at the Academy.” 

“A great deal more than cuts and scratches.” Avon pointed out. “You've been incapacitated, unable to focus, unable to fly. No use to anyone in an emergency.”

“Is that what this is about? Zen's craziness gave you a scare? That wasn't really an emergency, if you remember, and I was fine. Better than fine. I was the one who figured out what was going on.”

“That time,” Avon said. “And only because I hadn't got started.” 

“And if you had, as you delightfully put it, got started? You hurt me, we fuck, the med unit tidies everything up again. An hour, tops. You're saying we can't take an hour out every month any more in case something unexpected happens?” 

“That's exactly what I'm saying.”

“You're not serious?”

“Entirely.”

Tarrant shook his head. “Flattering as it is to be considered so indispensable, that's the craziest thing I've ever heard.” He stepped back and gestured for Avon to come out. “Come down to the galley with me. The others were in there last time I saw them.”

“This is not a matter for general consultation. This is my judgement, not a referendum.” 

“What I have to say is a ship matter so you technically have a veto which you can't use if you're shut in here. I'll go ahead and talk to them without you if I have to.” 

Avon adopted his coldest expression. “Tell me what you're up to.”

The necklace flared and Tarrant laughed. “I've had three weeks to get used to your gift and I've never been short on willpower. Come with me and you'll find out. Stay here and you'll find out later.”

Avon came, stalking along the corridor after the bobbing curls in a state of high annoyance. Tarrant was not going to change his mind by causing some sort of public scene.

“Tarrant.” Cally looked up from the meal she was sharing with Dayna. “Both of you! Is there a problem?”

“We have a request.” Tarrant said. “Or rather I have a request on behalf of both of us. Where's Vila?”

“Back now,” Vila said from the other doorway, “What's up?”

“Too much excitement,” Tarrant said. “What Avon and I could do with is some guaranteed uninterrupted recreational downtime with no possibility of having to run around the ship in a state of deshabille at critical junctures. It strikes me that the best way to achieve this would be to park up in deep space and set the long range scans to maximum for a couple of hours. Even the fastest ships out there couldn't reach us without a good four hours’ warning. There will be absolutely no urgent demands for our professional skills, Avon's bedroom door will stay firmly shut, and everyone will be happy. How does that sound?”

“Absolutely not.” Avon said harshly. “We are not going to divert the ship every time you get an itch you want scratching.”

“My itches never get scratched often enough to greatly inconvenience anyone,” Tarrant came back. “You want to talk about that now or shall we go back to my proposal?”

“This whole idea is ridiculous,” Avon hissed.

“It isn't really,” Cally said. “You two are the nearest thing we have to a long-term relationship on board. We can make a few adjustments for that.” She glanced around at the other two. “Can't we?”

“Sure,” Vila said. “I always say if you've got an itch and someone to scratch it for you, go for it.” 

Dayna shrugged, “We're not in any hurry right now. If you want to stop we'll stop. There's no need to go into details.”

“That's settled then,” Tarrant said to Avon. “I'll find the ship a quiet little spot well off all the flight paths and be with you in an hour and a half or so.”

Avon had still been trying to think of something suitably acidic to say about 'long term relationship'. He caught up with the fact that he just been signed up for an assignation just a little too late. Since arguing in public about whether he might be in the mood to screw Tarrant or not was considerably below his dignity he just turned and walked out. 

 

“What makes you think I'm going to let you in?”

“You're seriously pissed off with me,” Tarrant said. “We both know that there are better things to do about that than moping alone in your room.”

“You're living very dangerously.” 

“That's the point. Can I come in?”

“What's your safe word?”

“Roj Blake.”

Avon stepped aside as he'd always intended. As Tarrant walked past he pulled the stun stick from his belt and pushed it hard into the man's back.

Tarrant went down with a whoof, convulsed in an ungainly fashion on the floor and then staggered rather slowly to his feet.

“Want to try to take it from me?” Avon offered.

Tarrant eyed the weapon. “Coded to your hand print no doubt. I'll give that a miss.”

“Wise. This isn't a play session. You're going to do exactly what I tell you or you're going to spend the next hour thrashing around and pissing on my floor. Understood?”

“Perfectly,” Tarrant said. 

Avon wasn't under the illusion that a single shock would make Tarrant entirely compliant but it was sufficiently unpleasant to make him cautious. That would do as a start.

Five minutes later he had Tarrant naked except for his jewellery and chained by one wrist to the head of the bed. So far he hadn't done anything that the man would object to. That was about to change. 

The box under his bed was heavier than it used to be. Rather than trying to lift it he sat on the floor to sort through the contents. Tarrant looked down over the edge of the bed and provided commentary.

“I remember those red things but what on earth does that brown box do? It looks like a circuit tester.”

Avon pushed the electric brander to one side. He wasn’t looking for hi-tech devices. He was in the mood for something raw and physical, something he could apply using his own strength. Something that would create blood and noise along with the pain. He picked up a particularly vicious short whip, running a finger along the sharp leather edge. Perfect. 

“You’re a walking cliché, you know,” Tarrant said. “Whips and handcuffs and all that black leather.”

“And you’re wearing the collar I gave you,” Avon retorted. “What do you think that makes you?”

“It’s not a collar!”

Despite his annoyance Avon couldn’t resist a smile at Tarrant’s horrified expression. “Had that really not occurred to you?”

“No, of course it hadn’t!”

“I’m pretty sure it occurs to everyone else on the ship every time you make a point of flaunting it.”

“Shit!” Tarrant said. “But it’s a necklace! That’s all!”

“Check out the symbolism,” Avon said. “If you’re going to flirt with masochism you really ought to pay some attention to the culture.” He pushed the box back under the bed and stood up, putting the whip down on the table so that he could take off his shirt. This could get a little messy. 

“Zen, put up sound dampers around my room.”

“Confirmed.”

“Be as loud as you like,” he told Tarrant, who was now crouching on the bed, balanced on the balls of his feet, free arm raised defensively. “This is definitely going to hurt.”

“Sadistic bastard,” Tarrant hissed at him. As usual when it came down to it the man didn’t actually want to be hurt but had too much pride to safe word. Avon never ceased to be amazed at how often Tarrant would get himself in these no-win situations. It couldn’t just be the prospect of sex to follow, surely?

He slashed downwards, hard. The whip dug into Tarrant’s raised forearm, the man gasped and Avon was knocked down by a jolt that tore through him.

A second shock went through him as he lay on the ground. He grabbed for the stun stick at his belt and threw it across the room. The third shock came anyway. Ground, it was coming from the ground. He scrabbled at the edge of the bed and used Tarrant’s extended leg to pull himself upwards, collapsing on the coverlet.


	3. Chapter 3

Avon lay face down on the bed for a few seconds, still twitching from the shocks. 

“What the hell are you up to now?” Tarrant enquired.

“Did you feel it?” He pulled himself up to sit against the end board. Tarrant was facing him. backed up against the headboard.

“I felt your bloody whip. Nothing else. If you got a shock from your stun stick that's poetic justice.”

“It’s not that. It’s the floor. There are electric pulses going through it.”

Tarrant leaned over to look at the carpet, cradling his bloodied arm against his chest. “Are you sure?”

“Zen. I’ve just got electric shocks from my floor. What’s going on?”

“An electric current is passing through the floor of this room at approximately 3.76 second intervals.”

“Well, make it stop!” Avon snapped.

“Confirmed. The current will cease in approximately 53 minutes.”

“Zen. Is this happening anywhere else in the ship?” Tarrant asked.

“Negative.”

“It can’t take 53 minutes to correct a dangerous electrical fault,” Avon said furiously. “What the hell is wrong with this ship?”

“Take this cuff off and I’ll tell you,” Tarrant said.

“You think you know?”

“Cuff.” Tarrant rattled it.

Avon's muscles still hurt and if Tarrant had caused this he was bloody well out for some payback. There wasn't much room to wrestle on the bed but the other man would be significantly handicapped by the restraint and unprotected by clothes. "I think I'll just beat it out of you,"

Tarrant looked incongruously startled by the raised hand. "Don't touch me!"

"Is that the best that you've got?" 

"Roj Blake!"

Avon transformed the lunge forward into a reach for the cuff lock. He felt unreasonably disappointed at the other man. Tarrant had an absolute right to safe word. It was just unexpected. 

"Don't look at me like that," Tarrant said. "I'm trying to stop you making a potentially lethal mistake."

"Lethal?" Avon couldn't make sense of that. He didn't even have a weapon.

He applied his thumbprint to the lock. Tarrant stretched that arm out, sighing in relief, then wrapped up his bleeding arm with Avon’s pillowcase. 

"Zen's protecting me. Hadn't you worked that out?"

“What?”

“It doesn’t approve of the way you’re treating me,” Tarrant said more cheerfully.

Avon stared at him. “It’s a computer. It doesn’t approve or disapprove of anything.”

“Apparently it does. I’d suggest that you put the theory to the test but it might do something much nastier to you next time. I’m Liberator’s pilot. In Zen’s eyes I suspect that makes me far more valuable than you. Ask it if you don't believe me."

"Zen. Did you electrify my floor to prevent me from damaging your pilot?"

"Affirmative."

Avon shook his head in disbelief. "Did you create the illusion of ships attacking us for the same reason?"

"Affirmative."

"Told you," Tarrant said.

"And I suppose you think this is amusing?"

"I think it's infuriating," Tarrant said. "I don't need anyone to look out for me and you're hard enough to persuade into bed already without this. Can you fix it?"

"How the hell should I know?" Disbelief was turning to anger. His ship had turned against him. Zen had attacked him. Him, personally, not all the crew. Because it preferred its vain empty-headed show off of a pilot to the man who had worked with it for four bloody years. 

He knew that this wasn't a logical way to think about a machine but the shocks had hurt and Zen had been accepted by everyone as part of his domain for as long as he'd been on board. He'd thought himself long past the stage where others' perfidy could affect him but then he'd never been betrayed by a computer he thought of as his before. 

"I didn't know." Tarrant said. "I certainly didn't do anything to encourage it."

Avon resisted the utterly inappropriate urge to lash out at the man. Not only had he been safeworded but Zen might do something in response.

"Keep away from me," he said instead. It came out a little harsher than he'd intended. "I don't want your bodyguard getting any more ideas."

Tarrant shifted further up the bed. "You're going to blame me anyway. That's not very rational of you."

"I'm not going to risk getting hurt again just for the dubious pleasure of fondling your naked body, that's certain."

"Whereas I go through hell for the chance to get close to yours." Tarrant said. "Every opportunity I get. But then this relationship has never been remotely equitable. This will doubtless be another excuse for you to shut me out. I sometimes think you're the real masochist. One thing in your life that you really want and you're desperate to find any reason to give it up."

"I don't lay a finger on you without your consent. Zen attacked me. The two aren't remotely comparable."

"You follow your damn rules to the letter," Tarrant agreed. "You've just had the chance to see how impressed an unbiased observer is about that."

"Make up your mind!" Avon snapped at him. "Either you're a victim or you're not. You nag me to do this and then you bitch about how unfair it is. No wonder you've confused Zen enough for it to try to kill me."

Tarrant blinked at him. "You really think that's it?"

Avon had mainly been letting off steam, but now that he'd said it, it seemed obvious. "You can't give a computer conflicting inputs and expect it to give you a balanced answer. How is Zen to calculate whether you're actually in danger or not?"

Tarrant looked stricken. “I had no idea that Zen was paying attention to what we said.”

Avon hadn't had any idea either but he wasn't the one who had screwed up. “I suppose that I can probably fix it, at least as far as stopping the ship from trying to kill me, if you don't make things any worse.”

“We’ll have to tell the others,” Tarrant said. “Hell knows what Zen might be picking up from them as well.”

Nothing even remotely as disturbing as his interactions with Tarrant, Avon guessed. He briefly considered how that conversation might be expected to go and tried not to wince. “I'll tell them. You can keep quiet for once. For now you can tell Zen to fix my floor.” 

“Zen.” Tarrant said. “I'm in absolutely no danger. Please remove the electric current immediately.”

“Confirmed.”

“Is it gone?”

“Affirmative.”

They both looked over the edge of the bed at the innocuous-looking carpet.

“Go on,” Avon said to Tarrant. “You first.” 

“You'd better fix this soon,” Tarrant told him. “Before the effort of not calling you any of the names you richly deserve kills me outright.” He placed a foot carefully on the floor, waited a few seconds, then jumped off the bed and started to dress.

 

“At some point in the fairly recent past, for reasons as yet unknown, Zen has begun to treat the transactions between crew members on this ship as data.” 

Avon paused. The faces as he’d expected, were depressingly blank, apart from Tarrant who was sprawled on the sofa doing his best to look nonchalant. Under his flared shirt his arm was bandaged. 

“What does that actually mean?” Cally asked.

“It means that Zen has started to interfere in human affairs based on an alien and misguided interpretation of what’s going on.”

“You could still be a great deal clearer,” Dayna said. “How is it interfering? Has this to do with the phantom ships? What’s going on, Tarrant?”

“I could explain it in a couple of sentences,” Tarrant said. “But Avon was particularly insistent that he field this one. Being the top computer guy, I suppose.”

Avon gave him a chilly look. “Very well. Zen has been attempting to stop me from what it perceives as actions that are a threat to Tarrant, first by using the distraction of the non-existent ships, more recently by sending electric shocks through my floor. It is not at all clear how far it is prepared to go, but since it does not appear to have the capacity to understand human relationships this development is quite obviously a danger to all of us.” 

There was a long and not very comfortable silence. 

“So what do we do about it?” Cally said finally.

“The situation has only just come to my attention.” Avon wished that hadn’t come out quite so stiffly. “I’ll have to interrogate Zen in detail. In the meantime we should all be careful of what we say. There have undoubtedly been particular circumstances that Zen may have had excessive difficulty interpreting, but there’s no guarantee that it understands everything else that we do. Just be aware that we are being overheard by something that was not designed for human ways of thinking. Try not to be unnecessarily confusing or confrontational.”

“What about the mission?” Cally asked.

Tarrant spoke up. “I think we ought to stay put for now until we sort out what’s going on. Out here in the deep there’s a limit to how confused we can get by what’s on the screens. If Zen’s going to hallucinate again we should be able to tell.” 

It was a fair point, Avon admitted. They’d miss a rebel rendezvous but that wasn’t a major problem. “For the moment, then. I’ll report back when I have something concrete from Zen.”

 

“Can I speak to you?”

“Is it urgent?” Avon didn’t look up from the console. He’d been at this for several hours already and was not yet getting very far.

“It’s important,” Cally said. “And it won’t take more than a few minutes.”

He’d already lost his complex train of thought. He sighed. “I suppose so.”

Cally came onto the flight deck and joined him at his usual place. "You and Del have always tried to keep your relationship private, and we've tried to respect that."

"Is there really any need to discuss this?" Avon said.

"I think there is. Hear me out please. It might seem sometimes that we're pretending it isn't happening, because it’s embarrassing or unacceptable. That's not how we feel at all. I don't expect you to want to tell us any of the details but the fact that it's a sado-masochistic relationship isn't news to any of us and no-one cares. Del's crazy about you -that much is obvious. Love's all that matters, whatever form it takes."

Avon took a couple of deep breaths and discarded his first instinctive response. "It was kind of you to come and offer support in these particularly awkward circumstances. I'm sure that if Tarrant and I have been in the cuddly little S&M flavoured love affair that you picture so romantically then it would have been a great consolation to us both.”

He looked across at Zen’s flashing lights, then directly at Cally. “Unfortunately you've got us both rather wrong. Tarrant signs up to get hurt because he's stupid and naïve. I hurt him because he's stupid and naive and because I find inflicting pain sexually arousing. Zen probably has a better grasp on the essentials of our relationship than you do. Now if you don't mind I have work to do."

He turned back to his screen and listened to the footsteps fade,

 

"Was that necessary?"

Avon had half expected the second interruption. Everyone gossiped on this ship. He looked up at Tarrant. "Keep your voice down. No confrontation, remember?"

"Fuck that. I've just been talking to Cally. You really upset her."

"I don't see why I should have done. It wasn't her private business that we were discussing."

"You have to be so bloody arrogant. Would it really have been so hard to leave some of her illusions intact?"

"What good do comforting fantasies do her or anyone else?"

"Well I told her the truth," Tarrant said, somewhat defiantly 

"You mean that you told her your version of a comforting fantasy. The truth is both simple and unpalatable. You're a half-hearted masochist at best but the only entertainment I have available, whereas you are so dazzled by your school boy crush that you have no idea what I'm really like."

Tarrant glared at him. "We've had this conversation a dozen times. Repeating it doesn't make it true. You lied to Cally, you're lying to me and I have no doubt that you lie to yourself constantly."

"Your emotional instability has already caused this dangerous mess. Don't stand there and make it worse. Get out!"

He saw the gems flicker as Tarrant turned to stalk out.

"Wait!"

"Like hell I will" Tarrant said and kept going.

"Take off that necklace. I need to take a look at it."

Tarrant turned at the door. "Right now I care about as much about what you need as you ever do about anyone else on this ship."

The door slammed close behind him.


	4. Chapter 4

The gathering in response to Avon's summons was noticeably subdued. He had been planning to explain his research in detail but after looking round he decided instead on an executive summary.

“You will all be pleased to hear that we can stop walking on eggshells.  Zen has not been listening in to our conversations nor monitoring our behaviour. It remains as oblivious to human interactions, with one notable exception, as it had ever been. “

Relief on three faces and a scowl on the fourth. “Why are we the exception?” Tarrant demanded.

“I'm not certain of the precise mechanisms involved. It’s well beyond the tinkering I've done on the subject. But as far as I can tell the psychoactive device around your neck is emitting a wave that Zen is able to pick up.   It has been reading your emotions directly.”

He paused. Tarrant said nothing, so he went on.

"Most human emotions would be far beyond Zen's comprehension. But it has self-preservation programmed into it, which means it must have a concept of detecting and acting to avoid danger which is similar enough to human fear for it to react appropriately.”

“Appropriately?” Tarrant asked quietly.

“Appropriately in its terms. Identify the threat and neutralise it. You had no control over its reaction, obviously.  It wasn't your fault.”

“No.” Tarrant said, still quietly. “It wasn't.”

“So just take it off and everything can return to normal.”

The gems flickered.

“No, I don't think I will.” Tarrant stood up. “If the rest of you would excuse me?”  He walked out.

 

Through Tarrant's open door Avon could see him sitting shirtless in front of his mirror.  Bright metal shone at wrists and neck, and the white bandage was stark against his arm.  Avon closed the door behind him.

“You have to take it off.”

“You don't need to worry.”  Tarrant didn't look at him.  “As long as you don't frighten me you're perfectly safe.”

“It's dangerous for you as well.”

“I don't see how.” Tarrant's fingers ran across the triangular links and he smiled faintly.  “Even if it were, I wouldn't care. The first and only thing you're ever given me. Why should I give it up?"

“It was never intended to do anything so risky as link to the ship,”

“What did you intend for it precisely? To control me? To collar me? To offer me a phantom of a relationship to keep me chasing after you?”

At least the first two of the above had been in his mind when he’d made it. He didn’t think it wise to say so. “It was a toy for the bedroom.”

“A sex toy that turned out to feel emotions? How could you possibly have predicted that?”

"Iy doesn't matter how aggrieved you feel." Avon insisted. "You can't keep feeding an alien system with your feelings.  Hell knows what else Zen might react to."

"I guess we'll find out," Tarrant said.

Avon sighed and tried his last card. "You wanted me to fix this, remember? I can't touch you until Zen stops attacking me for it."

"I imagine that you could safely touch me in all sorts of interesting ways," Tarrant said. "You just can't beat me up, because apparently that terrifies me."

The reason for the bitterness underlying the conversation was finally clear.

Avon pulled up a second chair and sat down next to the other man, regarding them both in the mirror.  "I know you very well by now. If I couldn't get you to feel fear as well as pain I'd be a thoroughly incompetent sadist and we'd both have been bored with this long ago. "

"Is that your attempt at consolation?"

"It's factually accurate."

Tarrant shook his head. "You told me that I'd caused this by confusing Zen.  It's not confused at all, is it?  It’s just reacting to my real feelings about you.”

No wonder Tarrant was so upset. He’d just taken a direct punch to his self-esteem, and the man never reacted well to those. "You weren't listening to me earlier. Zen understands next to nothing of your feelings. The only thing it can pick out is the only thing it acts on.  Courage, endurance, pride, desire -it's all white noise to it."

Tarrant looked away from the mirror and at him.  "I thought it was about stupidity and naivety?"

"Sometimes it is. People are complicated." Avon said. "That's what makes the fear worth achieving, from both sides.  A computer's never going to understand that."

Tarrant’s smile was a ghost of his usual one.  "Are we actually having a conversation about how we feel about this?"

"Sadly, yes. If you just take off that necklace we can both pretend it never happened,"

Tarrant put his hands behind his neck to the clasp, then stopped, apparently intent again on his reflection.

"It is a particularly fine piece of workmanship. " Avon said in a casual tone. "I suppose that I could always just replace the gems with some from the treasure room."

Tarrant's eyes darted to the reflection of his face. "You could do that, yes. " He started to say something, stopped, started again. "I would expect it back again when you've finished."

"Naturally." Avon said.  "I told you that the style doesn't suit me at all."

Tarrant sighed, unclasped it, slid his hands out of the bracelets and dropped them all into Avon's outstretched hands. "There. You will destroy all the fragments this time, won't you?  No more experimenting."

Avon had already started to mentally devise a series of tests to find out exactly how the sphere fragments might have communicated with Zen. He looked at Tarrant's expression and discarded the idea. "They're your property.  When they are removed you can dispose of them as you like."

“Straight into the nearest star,” Tarrant said.  “Just to be sure.”

Avon nodded.  “We should probably get moving again. There are rebels expecting to hear from us.”

“There's no hurry.” Tarrant said. “We could finish what we came out here to do. That's if you're up for it?”

Avon was startled. “I'd rather assumed you wouldn't be. Not after today.”

“You're certain I'm not still connected to Zen?”

“Certain.” Avon said. “There's no possibility of a residual link. Neither you nor Zen have that capacity on your own. And to be absolutely sure that nothing can possibly happen these are going in the stasis box in the lab until the gems are removed.”

“Then I can safely manage a little apprehension, if it comes to that. Yes, I'm up for it.”

This really wouldn’t be a good time to turn the man down, and Avon found that he had no inclination to do so anyway. “Half an hour then,” he said.

 

“Is he all right?” Dayna asked.

Avon had found the others in the galley. They looked up at the necklace dangling from his hand as he stood at the door.

“Back to his usual insufferable self.”  Avon said. “He and I are going to take some of that recreational downtime we were promised. We’ll see you in a couple of hours.”

He turned away towards the lab without waiting to see their reactions, which were, after all, irrelevant.

 

“Do you know another significant thing about this incident?”

The only reply was the harsh breathing of the man face down on the bed.

The cane flicked against the pattern of red lines across the back of Tarrant’s calves and thighs. “Well?”

Tarrant hissed.  “No.”

Putting down the cane, Avon pressed a palm against the criss-crossed scarlet, feeling the heat radiate against his skin. “Zen has no particular fondness for you. It would have come to the defence of anyone wearing that necklace, if they were scared enough.”

“You don't know that. One glance inside your head and I bet it would decide you weren’t worth saving.”

Avon laughed, running his hand upwards to rest on the small of Tarrant’s back.  “That sounded heartfelt. Gone off me again?”

“Hell, yes. Scum of the fucking earth.”  Tarrant paused for a pained breath. “Could be open to a reconciliation, mind you.”

“You always are. You’ll have to wait this time. I’m not done playing yet.”

He felt muscles twitch but all Tarrant said was "Get on with it them."

 

This time the shout was full-blooded. Avon lifted his gloved hand from Tarrant's upper arm and contemplated the man curled up beneath him. He could hold out for a proper scream but time was getting on, his own physiology was becoming demanding and Tarrant already looked distinctly rough round the edges.

Avon turned the switch off and removed the glove from his hand with care. He walked round the bed, assessing visible damage. Mostly just the back of the legs, red and swollen but probably not bad enough to need numbing to get the man through the next bit. He reached out to run his hand over Tarrant's arse and desire surged through him. He wanted sex now and hard.

Tarrant uncurled a little. "Are you done?"

"Unless you want more?"

"No, thank you." He dragged himself up to a sitting position, knees bent in front of him so that the backs of his legs didn't touch the bedclothes. "At least not more of that."

He shifted his legs apart so that Avon could kneel between them, and reached out to stroke his cock. "Fuck, you're hard. Was I loud enough for you?"

"The noise was appreciated." He'd been sure that Tarrant could have chosen to be a great deal tighter-lipped than that.

"You're welcome." Tarrant wrapped his free hand around the back of Avon's head and pulled then together for a rough kiss. His hand was squeezing tight around Avon's cock.

Avon pushed him down onto his back. "Need anything?"

"I think I'm about to get it."

That raised a smile, "Never wise to say anything so optimistic to a sadist. It could all go horribly wrong for you still." He reached round to dig his fingernails into the swollen underside of Tarrant's thigh and the man yelped. "For Instance I might decide to screw you hard from behind."

"Bring it on," Tarrant said, a little shakily.

For a moment Avon was tempted. Tarrant wouldn't enjoy it, at least not after the first minute or so, but he undoubtedly would.

Not today. "Too much trouble," he said casually."I've already got you where I want you." He placed a hand on Tarrant's hip and leaned forward onto it, the other sliding between Tarrant's thighs. Two fingers penetrated without any finesse and Tarrant gasped. More discomfort than pleasure, Avon reckoned. 

"There's lube under the pillow," he suggested. Most times he'd make Tarrant live with his failure to ask for it earlier, but being inconsistent sometimes was a sadist's prerogative.

Even smoother it was still good. His nails dug into Tarrant's chest as his climax built and the man grinned back up at him, sufficiently aroused by now to welcome that sort of pain. As he reached a silent orgasm he found himself thinking that maybe they should do this far, far more often.

His fingernails had drawn blood. He hadn't even noticed. He smeared the tiny marks with a thumb as he withdrew. Tarrant's eyes were closed as he reached down to his own half erect cock.

"Hands behind your head."

Tarrant opened his eyes, grinned happily at Avon and complied. 

The next bit of conversation was about quarter of an hour later and consusted entirely of Tarrant begging. "For fuck's sake, Avon. Please!"

Avon was in no hurry to finish what he'd started. He dug his fingers into Tarrant's pubic hair and tugged hard.

"Come on," Tarrant insisted. His fingers were tightly interlocked under his head and his back was arching. "Bastard! Please!"

Avon wondered how long it would take the man to break discipline and make his own grab for release. His thumb ran over the wet head of Tarrant's erection lightly and the groan was heartfelt. Not long. Better to provide a reward for obedience than let this turn into a squabble. 

He reached over for the hand recorder on the desk and flicked it on.

"Beg me again," he suggested, dropping it on Tarrant's chest. "Make it explicit this time."

"Fucking hell, Avon, will you please just suck my fucking cock and if you do anything with this recording I will bloody well kill you now just please make me come! Please! I'm begging, OK? Gods I hate you!"

Avon laughed."Keep talking." He bent down to do as he had been asked, listening with amusement as the stream of consciousness turned into incoherent obscenities. 

"You're not going to keep that." Tarrant's breath was slowing now as he lay flat on his back, seemingly oblivious to the state of his legs 

"Keep and use." Avon said, lying down next to the other man. "It will make a good soundtrack to all sort of activities."

Tarrant sighed. "Creep. Just keep it to yourself.". He rolled over to sprawl half on top of Avon and kiss him rather langourously. 

Avon finally pushed him away and stretched. 

"By the time you've used the med unit our two hours will be nearly up."

"Does it matter?" Tarrant asked.

"I suppose not. But I've finished with you now anyway. I need a shower."

"When do I get my necklace back?"

"When -if- I can be bothered." Avon had already mentally set aside the next couple of days for the task of selecting the stones and shaping them.

Tarrant rolled off the bed, cursed and hobbled painfully over to the bathroom. He emerged wearing Avon's dressing gown. "Flight deck in 30 minutes, then," and he was gone. 

 

"Basically whatever was lying around." Avon said. 

He'd spent the best part of a day just picking out the perfect gems from the treasure store for the necklace. Ruby, sapphire, emerald and half a dozen others, a different one for each link. But then he was always something of a perfectionist. 

Tarrant ran his fingers over the necklace. "It's beautiful." He held one sparkling link up to the light. "You've given me diamonds!"

"Diamond." Avon corrected. "Only one small one. And you're well aware of my ulterior motives."

"True." Tarrant lifted it around his neck. 

Look at the man, Avon told himself, strutting about like a peacock. He really should have melted the damn thing down when it ceased to fulfil its original purpose. Still, as collars went it was undeniably impressive.

The gems in the bracelets had all been replaced with sapphires, for no better reason than that they were Avon's favourites and he might as well have something attractive to look at. He walked up to stand behind the parrot admiring his plumage in the mirror and slid his hands under the gold and silver links to circle the man's neck. He could feel Tarrant's pulse at his fingertips. 

"Don't think of it as a gift. I'll be taking payment in full," he said.

"Even better." Tarrant brushed his own fingertips over Avon's. "I'm going to stop being obviously delighted now before you start regretting the whole thing. Flight deck?"

To show off there, no doubt. Avon suspected that he was already regretting it. He'd have to find something quite dramatically unpleasant to do in order to quell Tarrant's newfound enthusiasm for him. Letting go, he followed the pilot up to the flight deck, the start of ideas already circling in his mind as he watched the hint of gold and silver showing under brown curls.


End file.
